As the old cliché goes, “action speaks louder than
words” and someday you may want to examine Barack Obama’s
presidential years and compare what he said during and before his
presidential campaign and what he actually did and accomplish while
in office.

As the old cliché goes, “action speaks louder than
words,” and someday you may want to examine Barack Obama’s
presidential years and compare what he said during and before his
presidential campaign and what he actually did and accomplish while
in office.

To facilitate your task, Carl “Tuchy” Palmieri has put
together fifty-seven pages of Obama’s quotes articulated prior to
his campaigning for president and during the campaign itself.

Palmieri divides these words of wisdom into several themes dealing
with such topics as people, Presidents, abortion, being the best you
can, money, America, his slip-ups, education, war on terror, God and
religion, national security, opportunity, environment, helping less
fortunate, the economy, immigration, nuclear proliferation, politics,
and race.

It was fascinating and engrossing to read some of Obama’s
elegant and precise remarks pertaining to race. “The point I was
making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She
doesn’t. But she is a typical white person who, if she sees
somebody on the street that she doesn’t know, there’s a reaction
that’s been bred into our experiences that don’t go away, and
that sometimes comes out in the wrong way, and that’s just the
nature of race in our society.”

His comments pertaining to the Palestinians is particularly
welcoming particularly that very little press is devoted to the
wrongs they have suffered at the hands of their own corrupt leaders.
“Nobody’s suffering more than the Palestinian people from this
whole process. And I would like to see-if we could get some movement
from Palestinian leadership-what I’d like to see is loosening up of
some of the restrictions on providing aid directly to the Palestinian
people.”

Prior to each theme, Palmieri also provides his readers with a
series of questions that ask the following: what do you appreciate
about your country, what you love about your states, what are you
grateful for about your city or town, what are you joyful about your
family/fellowship/friends, what you acknowledge for yourself and what
action are you willing to take today for your
country/state/city/town/family/fellowship/friends/yourself.

When I completed my reading of the book, I was reminded of the
story of the pillow that once you open it and let the feathers fly
away, it is practically impossible to retrieve them. Possibly
President Obama, when one day he reminisces about his years in power,
he likewise will be reminded of this anecdote.

A fundamental weakness with this book is the absence of a table
of contents and index. Another is the lack of footnotes or endnotes
indicating when and where these statements were made. The latter is
quite essential if you wish to use the book as a reference text.